Harlequinade | Page 6

or that you like chocolate, or that your Uncle's fond of you ... after a bit it somehow isn't there any longer. That's what nearly happened to the gods. But Mercury knew that if people won't believe a thing when you say it's real, they'll just as good as believe it and understand it a great deal better when it only seems make-believe. And that's Art. And as the easiest art in the world is the art of acting ... I hope they didn't hear [She wags back her little head to the proscenium.] ... the gods became actors.
UNCLE EDWARD. Now you get back to the story. It's all they [He wags his big head at the audience.] care about.
ALICE. Yes. Momus helped Mercury find Psyche, and they all had a tremendous time and hoped it would never be Monday. For every time they got to the end of a century they wanted to stay and see what would happen in the next. Like when you eat nuts it's so very difficult to stop at any particular nut, isn't it? Now I ...
UNCLE EDWARD. But they don't want to hear about you.
ALICE. Sorry.
UNCLE EDWARD. And don't gabble. This ain't the metaphysics, which they can't abear. This is facts. They respect facts.
ALICE. I hate facts. They're so dull. It was when they became actors they got their new names. Harlequin and Columbine and Clown and Pantaloon. And they travelled from Greece into Italy, where Charon got called Pantaloon because he acted an old gentleman of Venice, and Saint Pantaleone is a patron of Venice, and there were heaps of people called Pantaleone there in the fifteenth....
[Uncle Edward is snapping his fingers and pointing to Ms trousers.]
Yes, I know. Even to-day Pantaloon is still wearing the very Venetian clothes of the time when he first played the part. He's got on the first pantaloons ever worn, and his hair is tied in a lovelock. Clown and Pantaloon have got white faces. By this time funny actors, who acted in dumb-show, used to put flour on their faces, like Pierrot you know, because the theatres were so dark and they wanted to show their expressions. Then there's the scene. I do hope you'll like the scene. It's supposed to be Italy, and I think it's beautiful. Anyhow it's the kind of scene we have to have so as not to take up too much room. And it has beehives in it. Columbine keeps two, one for bees and one for butterflies.
[It is part of Alice's regret, for which she keeps a nearly secret sigh, that we couldn't have real bees and butterflies. She thinks it would be so jolly to see the bees and butterflies go among the audience and settle on the buttonholes and sprays they wear and bring back the sense of gardens to the people there.
Uncle, do you know how Clown told me how to tell the difference?
UNCLE EDWARD. You minx!
ALICE. Put your hand into the butterfly hive, and if they sting you, you know it's the bees.
UNCLE EDWARD. Did he? Well, go on and tell them the rest.
ALICE. Yes. Columbine has run away again. The story's always got to be that. Either Columbine runs away from somebody, or somebody runs away with her. That's because the soul is always struggling to be free. This time Cousin Clown and Uncle Pantaloon helped her. She could twist them round her little finger. And she made a great mistake in running away with this very sham-serious young man.
UNCLE EDWARD. Sham-serious?
ALICE. He only thinks he's serious because he reads books all day long. And she married him, and he's turned out to be most awfully dull. And I'm most awfully sorry for her. He treats her like a bit of furniture. Isn't it funny the way the soul will fall in love ... and with the most unaccountable people; and you know how you say "I can't think what she sees in the man...." But a god can see ... and an artist. And Harlequin's a bit of both. So when he comes along ... Uncle, the rest of it isn't a very nice story. Will they mind?
UNCLE EDWARD. They? They'll like it all the better.
ALICE. Well, you see the husband being so dull, she wants somebody to take her out and show her things and be attentive. And there's the Man of the World. And things are getting rather serious. For Cousin Clown and Uncle Pantaloon aren't any use. They're just stupid and friendly and nice, like all one's country cousins. But just in time comes Harlequin-Mercury. He has no wings left to his feet, because you wear off wings rather soon if you wander about the world. And his wand hasn't any snakes left. It's just painted white wood. And it's